The DOI matches its Crossref record; 27 of the 27 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Probing the cosmological variation of the fine-structure constant: Results based on VLT-UVES sample
Open accessAbstract
Development of fundamental physics relies on the constancy of various fundamental quantities such as the fine-structure constant. Detecting or constraining the possible time variations of these fundamental physical quantities is an important step toward a complete understanding of basic physics. High-quality absorption lines seen in the spectra of distant QSOs allow one to probe time variations of several of these quantities. Here we present the results from a detailed many-multiplet analysis, to detect the possible variation of the fine-structure constant, performed using high signal-to-noise ratio, (~70 per pixel), high spectral resolution ( 45 000) observations of 23 Mg ii systems detected toward 18 QSOs in the redshift range obtained using UVES at the VLT. We validate our procedure and define the selection criteria that will avoid possible systematics using a detailed analysis of a simulated data set. The spectra of Mg ii doublets and Fe ii multiplets are generated considering variations in α and specifications identical to that of our UVES spectra. We show that our Voigt profile fitting code recovers the variation in α very accurately when we use single component systems and multiple-component systems that are not heavily blended. Spurious detections are frequently seen when we use heavily blended systems or systems with very weak lines. Thus we avoided these system while analysing the UVES data. To make the analysis transparent and accessible to the community for critical scrutiny, all the steps involved in the analysis are presented in detail. The weighted mean value of the variation in obtained from our analysis over the redshift range is = . The median redshift of our sample is 1.55 and corresponds to a look-back time of 9.7 Gyr in the most favored cosmological model today. The 3σ upper limit on the time variation of α is . To our knowledge this is the strongest constraint from quasar absorption line studies to till date.
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“In order to avoid as much systematics as possible, they apply a series of selection criteria (Chand et al. 2004) on the systems used: (1) consider only lines with similar ionization potentials (Mg II, Fe II, Si II and Al II) as they are most likely to originate from similar regions in the cloud; (2) avoid absorption lines contaminated by atmospheric lines; (3) consider only systems with hight”
From Fundamental constants: from measurement to the universe, a window on gravitation and cosmology (2025) · cites this paper as Chand et al. 2004
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“Chand et al. (2004) and Srianand et al. (2004) analyzed the observations of 23 systems satisfying these criteria in direction of 18 QSO with a S/N ranging between 50 and 80 per pixel a”
From Fundamental constants: from measurement to the universe, a window on gravitation and cosmology (2025) · cites this paper as Chand et al. 2004
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Citations
Cites
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Further Evidence for Cosmological Evolution of the Fine Structure Constant
Webb, J. K., Murphy, M. T., Flambaum, V. V., Dzuba, V. A., Barrow, J. D., Churchill, C. W., Prochaska, J. X., & Wolfe, A. M. (2001) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.87.091301 · Cited by 824
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Atomic data for resonance absorption lines. I - Wavelengths longward of the Lyman limit
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Further evidence for a variable fine-structure constant from Keck/HIRES QSO absorption spectra
Murphy, M. T., Webb, J. K., & Flambaum, V. V. (2003) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06970.x · Cited by 514 · cited 8×
“2 of Murphy et al. 2003).”
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Dzuba, V. A., Flambaum, V. V., & Webb, J. K. (1999) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.82.888 · Cited by 307 · cited 4×
“The numerical values of the parameter q that are obtained using many-body relativistic calculations (see Dzuba et al. 1999, 2002) for different species are listed in the fifth column of Table 1.”
MethodInfluentialMg isotopic ratios in giant stars of the globular cluster NGC 6752
Yong, D., Grundahl, F., Lambert, D. L., Nissen, P. E., & Shetrone, M. D. (2003) · Astronomy & Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20030296 · Cited by 149 · cited 2×
“…systems and metallicity is measured to be larger than 0.1 Z (e.g. Ledoux et al. 2002); (ii) at Z ∼ 0.1 Z , which would be a more reasonable assumption, the composite wavelength we get will be close to the laboratory value we have used in our study (we use Yong et al. 2003 for isotopic abundances).”
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MethodThe UCSD HIRES/Keck I Damped Lyα Abundance Database. I. The Data
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MethodInfluential
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Copeland, E. J., Sami, M., & Tsujikawa, S. (2006) · International Journal of Modern Physics D · doi:10.1142/s021827180600942x · Cited by 6,733
Search for new physics with atoms and molecules
Safronova, M. S., Budker, D., DeMille, D. P., Kimball, D. F. J., Derevianko, A., & Clark, C. W. (2018) · Reviews of Modern Physics · doi:10.1103/revmodphys.90.025008 · Cited by 1,642
“However, the analysis of data from 23 absorption systems taken by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) ultraviolet and visual Echelle spectrograph (UVES) yielded a null result ∆α α = (−0.06± 0.06)× 10−5, (20) for 0.4 < z < 2.3 (Chand et al., 2004; Srianand et al., 2004).”
MethodInfluentialVarying Constants, Gravitation and Cosmology
Uzan, J. (2011) · Living Reviews in Relativity · doi:10.12942/lrr-2011-2 · Cited by 880
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Steinmetz, T., Wilken, T., Araujo-Hauck, C., Holzwarth, R., Hänsch, T. W., Pasquini, L., Manescau, A., D’Odorico, S., Murphy, M. T., Kentischer, T. J., et al. (2008) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1161030 · Cited by 718
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Metadata
- Authors
- Chand, H., Srianand, R., Petitjean, P., & Aracil, B.
- Affiliations
- Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IN)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Venue
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Publisher
- EDP Sciences
- Published
- 2004-03-26
- Volume
- 417
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 853-871
- ISSN
- 0004-6361 (ISSN-L)
- 1432-0746
- OpenAlex
- W2112768623
- Cited by
- 239
- References
- 27
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 16.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Astronomy and Astrophysics (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India
- Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research
- European Southern Observatory (166.A-0106)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Cosmology and Gravitation Theories
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Keywords
- fine-structure constant variation, variation of fundamental constants, quasar absorption lines, Mg II doublet, Voigt profile fitting, cosmological constraints
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